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Dom Robinson reviews
- Cert:
- Cat.no: 22235 DVD
- Running time: 78 minutes
- Year: 2002
- Pressing: 2003
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 28 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English for the hearing impaired
- Widescreen: 2.35:1
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: Making of Phone Booth, Director’s Commentary
Director:
- Joel Schumacher
(8MM, Bad Company, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, The Client, Cousins, D.C. Cab, Dying Young, Falling Down, Flatliners, Flawless, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, The Lost Boys, On The Road, Phantom of the Opera (2004),Phone Booth, St Elmo’s Fire, Tigerland, A Time To Kill, Veronica Guerin)
Producers:
- Gil Netter and David Zucker
Screenplay:
- Larry Cohen
Music :
- Harry Gregson-Williams
Cast :
- Stu Shepard: Colin Farrell
The Caller: Kiefer Sutherland
Captain Ramey: Forest Whitaker
Kelly Shepard: Radha Mitchell
Pamela McFadden: Katie Holmes
Felicia: Paula Jai Parker
Corky: Arian Ash
“Ha! Missed me!”
Phone Boothwas a movie held back from release for a while because it held chillingsimilarities to the Washington sniper, although I recently saw comedian JimJeffries say “Is it just me, or does anyone else miss the Washingtonsniper?” and then go on to say that muggings down markedly in the statebecause the muggers were too scared to set foot outside their own door!
Publicist and wise-cracker Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) has a mobilephones, so why should he need to use a phone booth to call potential actressPamela McFadden (Katie Holmes)? The movie utilises split-screen shotsto attempt to increase the tension, but that didn’t quite cut it for me.I really thought I would find this a lot more engaging, but what started withan interesting premise didn’t develop like I thought and from early on Ididn’t care whether Stu was gunned down or not, although you knew he wouldn’tcome to much harm because he was the star of the film… so from where wasthe suspense meant to come?
Somehow, the end result didn’t gel with what I was expecting. The problem wasdown to the total lack of conviction in the voiceover from Kiefer Sutherlandas “The Caller”. I understand he wasn’t the original choice and actuallyrecorded it close to the film’s completion as a last-minute change – and itshows. Kiefer’s a tour-de-force in24but here, his vocal performance leaves me cold. They should’ve gonefor an unknown in that role.
Oh, and if he’s calling via a phone, it should SOUND like he’s callingfrom a phone. You know how that sounds… and it does NOT sound like he’scalling through a set of speakers all around the viewer(!) Hence, thistotally removes any potential atmosphere.
Given the real-time nature of this film, had it been the plot of a singlehour of ’24’, for example – since the siege end-to-end lasts almost exactlyan hour, we’d have had a great little one-off and we’d have had time to buildup knowledge of the characters and to empathise with them, but as it’sstandalone movie I couldn’t really care less who lives and who dies as we’renot given the chance to get to find out anything important about them.
Katie Holmes and Radha Mitchell.
Does movie totty get any better than this?
The film is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen and has no problems,while the Dolby Digital 5.1 doesn’t get much of a workout because the filmis largely set in one static location.
The extras are… not much to shout about:
- The Making Of Phone Booth (28 mins):Nearly half-an-hour of talk about how the film was put together over anunusally brief 10-day-shoot. It’s okay but nothing out of the ordinary.
- Director’s Commentary:If you like that sort of thing.
The film contains 28 chapters which is quite a lot for such a short film,subtitles are available in English only and the main menu has little noticeableanimation and is scored with a looped piece of incidental music and wordsfrom The Caller.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.